Sunday, December 11, 2016

As we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe this
Monday (December 12th), I wholeheartedly join my brothers in the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops in our call for a National Day of Prayer
and Solidarity with our immigrant families. I am deeply grateful to our
Conference President and Vice President, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and our own
Archbishop José Gomez, for their leadership in this important effort for the
migrant communities in our country, whose fears and challenges in these troubling
days cry out for our prayers and our action on their behalf.

I was recently privileged to share some impressions on the difficulties facing
the immigrants among us in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaper.
Since the article was published in Italian, the following is my original draft
in English.

On her feast and always, may America’s presence of Mary, our Mother Guadalupe,
guide and help our Church as week seek to serve her children. ¡Virgen de
Guadalupe, ruega por nosotros!

_____________

“The American Dream”

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
Archbishop-emeritus of Los Angeles

Over recent days, the United States Senate heard the moving story of a young
man named Rey Piñeda. Born in Mexico, Rey came with his family to the
United States at age 2. Because of his status as an undocumented immigrant, he
was prevented from fulfilling his hopes for an education and pursuing his
life’s ideals, until the 2012 introduction of the national Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrival (DACA) program, which has provided him and close to 770,000
other young people protection from deportation and allowing them authorization
to work.

While President-elect Donald J. Trump has pledged to implement several severe
immigration policies, including the deportation of 11 million undocumented
immigrants and the construction of a wall on the Mexican border, the most
pressing and imminent challenge his incoming Administration presents on this
critical issue is its promise to rescind the DACA program.

Fr. Rey Piñeda

Recently ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and assigned as a
parochial vicar at its Cathedral of Christ the King, for Fr. Rey Piñeda, the
closing of DACA would likely mean the end his ability to serve, forcing him and
thousands of others to return to “the shadows,” where our undocumented sisters
and brothers live in fear of a “knock at the door” taking them away from their
homes, their families and life as they know it, most of them never to return.

Known as the “DREAMers,” these young people in their teens and 20s were brought
to the U.S. by their parents as young children, unaware of any laws or
documents, only knowing and seeking to be with their families. More than
being bright and talented contributors to this nation, they are our future
leaders, even in the Church: even today, they are already Americans in
everything but citizenship.

According to a study by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, the
DREAMers are deeply embedded in U.S. society. Eighty-five percent have
lived in the United States for ten years or more. Ninety-three percent
have at least a high school degree, with forty-three percent having attended
college or graduated from college. Eighty-nine percent are employed – and
thus pay taxes – while ninety-one percent speak English very well or
exclusively.

To remove protections from this group is not only mean-spirited, but a foolish
act of self-sabotage to both the national interest and the values which have
always made this country great. Today, as it has been since our nation’s
founding, the promise and common good of this nation is best served when we
support hard-working, intelligent young people, and give them the means to
flourish. It is in this tradition that preserving DACA is our only sane,
moral and truly American way forward.

Unlike the Border wall and several other aspects of his immigration proposals,
upon the moment he assumes office next month, President-elect Trump will be
able to eliminate the DACA program with the stroke of a pen. He will,
however, find that removing these young people will not be so easy. I
believe that the American people will not allow it, both in terms of public
opinion and in active resistance.

In other words, I believe Americans will not cooperate with Mr. Trump's
Administration on implementing mass deportations, most especially the
deportation of young immigrants. These DREAMers are now part of our
social fabric—we see them everyday in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and
schools. They have forged bonds with U.S. citizens who know them as people,
not a "status" or piece of paperwork. They are contributing
their energies to this country, and have fought for their God-given rights and
their place at our national table. Some serve in the U.S. military,
others in education or health-care, yet regardless of their chosen profession,
the DREAMers show us that the “American dream” is alive and well in their
hands.

Should President-elect Trump move to eliminate DACA, calls have already emerged
for churches and communities to protect them by not cooperating with
immigration enforcement and by providing sanctuary for those likely to be
affected. I add my voice to that call, and I am particularly gratified to
be joined by a growing number of my brother bishops, as well as nearly 100 of
the presidents of our nation’s Catholic colleges and universities, who have
spoken up in support of these sisters and brothers of ours.

Pope Francis captures the spirit and heart of what we seek to say. “Migrants
and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity,” he wrote in 2014.
“They are children, women, and men who leave their homes for various
reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and being, but above all
being more.”

Still closer to home, on his visit last year to our nation’s very birthplace at
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the Holy Father expressed his “particular
affection” for the U.S.’ latest generation of new arrivals, urging them to “not
be discouraged by whatever challenges and hardships you face.

“You bring many gifts to your new nation,” the Pope told today's migrants among
us, encouraging them to “never be ashamed of your traditions… which are
something you can bring to enrich the life of this American land.”

After an election campaign which has exposed bitter divides among our people
and, sadly, unearthed sicknesses in our society that many thought were left in
the past, advocating for policies like DACA and those it benefits is just one
part of the challenge we face as a Church.

On one side, the fear and anxiety which have gripped our immigrant communities
in these days isn’t simply real, but currently running as deep as many of us
who serve among them have ever seen. Even more, however, as citizens
committed to the common good and pastors who seek to serve and imitate the Lord
Jesus, one of the harrowing lessons this campaign season has shown us is the
degree to which many people who profess to be Christian, and even Catholic,
have succumbed to the “throwaway culture,” both in our national discourse and
in the policies they deemed acceptable to support.

While it is true that the current political environment of the U.S. has made
many of our faithful feel “politically homeless,” I fear that many Christians,
among them more than a few Catholics, have somehow become misled about the
demands of the Gospel regarding how we treat our neighbor, or how we answer the
very question of “Who is our neighbor?” Much as we have sought to be
prophetic witnesses to Christ and His teaching in and out of season, the new
political reality places a particular burden upon our ministry as shepherds: in
word and example, to express ever more powerfully to our people that the
commission to serve “the least of these” is not an ideological proposal that
one may see as disposable but, as Pope Francis has so frequently described it,
“the protocol by which we,” as Christians, “will be judged.”

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere.” The threat of deporting young people to a country
they do not know, or the prospect that the Church’s efforts on behalf of
immigrants could face civil intimidation or attempts at closure, raise the
specter of an injustice that would threaten all of us, flying in the face of
fairness and human decency, not to mention the very same Gospel which inspired
Dr King’s movement for civil rights. Even the possibility of these
dangers would gravely weaken our communities and diminish us as a nation.
In these days, then, let us pray for the courage, wisdom and fidelity to
serve our moment’s “suffering flesh of Christ” among us, in the confident faith
that what we do for them, we have done for Him.

Later this month, our immigrant families will gather again at the feet of their
beloved Mother as we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. May la
Virgen Morena, Patroness of this one American land, intercede for her children
and our entire society, that our service and witness on behalf of her Son’s
“least ones” may bring about a new spirit of reconciliation, liberty and justice
for all.

Post-Sacrament Evangelization

This Power Point presentation on "Post-Sacrament Evangelization" was given by Cardinal Roger Mahony at the 2014 Religious Education Congress. You are free to use it any way that helps evangelize our people following the reception of the Sacraments.

About Cardinal Mahony Blogs L.A.

Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs L.A. is the official blog of the Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Cardinal Mahony is the fourth and recently retired Archbishop of Los Angeles. Born in Hollywood, he is the first native Angeleno to be created Cardinal.

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT: Cardinal Mahony has served on a number of committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, including those on Pro-Life Activities, and Migration & Refugees. He was a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (1984-1989) and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants (1986-1991); he is presently a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications (1989-2911), the Congregation for Eastern Churches (2009-2013), and on the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See (2000 to 2013. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America.